Why your charity (still) needs better thank-you letters

by Lisa Sargent

So you’ve heard that, thanks to Lee Saunders, SOFII will champion the renaissance of the charity thank-you letter. Renaissance, you say? A lofty word, that, for the humble thank-you letter. 

But if you aim to raise money for good causes, the thank-you letter is still among your mightiest tools.

The Obama effect

by Jonathon Grapsas

Six lessons from President Obama’s fundraising team to help fuel growth in your organisation.

The donor pyramid is dead… Long live the donor pyramid!

by SOFII

Sarah Clifton shares her thoughts and asks: What exactly is the purpose of the donor pyramid if not to map the upgrade journey to a major gift?

FREE: ten years of fundraising experience!

by SOFII

Everything that Reinier Spruit has learnt in his his first ten years of fundraising and all in one handy read.

British Red Cross: the £7.7 billion appeal that changed British fundraising forever

by SOFII

The Duke of Gloucester’s Red Cross and St John Appeal Fund is the largest charitable fund in the history of British fundraising, raising the equivalent of £7.7 billion. This monumental exhibit should be read by all.

Centrepoint ‘sponsor a room’: donor acquisition

by SOFII

This exhibit is proof that traditional direct response fundraising can still work in the current fundraising climate. It demonstrates simple yet effective press advertising combined with a clever use of digital technology.

Farm Africa: a thank-you letter and gift

by SOFII

This is just a very nice thank-you letter that is easy to copy, though perhaps it would be best not to do so directly, but rather to adapt the idea behind it in a way that’s distinctive, individual and personal to your cause.

ActionAid: the welcome to child sponsorship package

by SOFII

ActionAid’s child sponsorship programme has been running in the UK for over 35 years. In 2008, they revisited the enquirer and welcome packs with the intention of making the materials the best that could be found anywhere.

Greenpeace UK welcome materials, from 1992

by SOFII

This is an important record of an approach to thanking and welcoming donors from back in the days when the idea of sayinging ‘thank you’ and ‘welcome’ was quite new to most organisations and barely understood in the emerging field of donor relationship development.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific: the welcome process

by SOFII

Think objectively about the experience a new donor has within the first few months of joining your organisation. Greenpeace Australia Pacific has developed a new and simplified process to ensure that new donors receive clear communications that both thank and further engage them. The result is that they’re reducing the number of donors who leave within the first three months.

Greenpeace USA newsletter: the origami whale

by Matthew Sherrington

If you want to engage your donors give them something interesting and fun to do. This is an example of transforming the humble newsletter, with new energy and purpose, to deliver a real involving experience to supporters.

To ask or not to ask, that is the question when saying thank you to a donor

by Lisa Sargent & Sean Triner

Find out what Sean Triner, co-founder and director, Pareto Fundraising in Australia and Lisa Sargent, principal at Sargent Communications, LLC in the USA have to say about this.